Chapter 45: The Magic School Bus and the Hand-Man's Therapy Bill
[Sunny Midoriya POV]
If there is one thing I've learned about being a 24-frame-per-second hallucination in a 60-fps world, it's that the "Narrative" hates a vacuum. And right now, the narrative was screaming for a "Field Trip Arc."
We were standing in front of the UA bus. Well, the rest of the class was standing in front of a standard, boring, gray-and-blue transport vehicle. I, however, was holding a giant neon-pink paintbrush and a bucket of "Plot-Armor Gloss."
"Sunny," Aizawa sighed, his capture weapon drooping with the weight of a thousand-yard stare. "Don't."
"Teach, please! The aesthetic is all wrong!" I chirped, my head spinning 360 degrees before snapping back with a loud [TWANG!]. "We're going to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint! You can't go to a disaster zone in a bus that looks like it's for a corporate retreat. We need… personality."
I slapped the side of the bus with the brush.
[POOF!]
The bus didn't just change color; it grew a face. Specifically, the front grill turned into a wide, cheerful grin, the headlights became massive, blinking eyes, and the entire roof sprouted a pair of feline ears.
"Behold!" I announced, gesturing to the Cat-Bus-School-Bus Hybrid. "The 'Calamity Cruiser'! It runs on imagination and high-fructose corn syrup!"
"I AM NOT GETTING ON A VEHICLE THAT PURRS!" Bakugo roared, his palms crackling with enough heat to melt the asphalt.
"Oh, hush, Kacchan," I said, snapping my fingers. [POP!]
Before the Boom-Boom Boy could protest, he was suddenly wearing a high-visibility toddler vest and was strapped into a bright red, oversized car seat in the front row. A plastic steering wheel appeared in front of him.
"Safety first for our most explosive passenger!" I grinned.
"I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL BLAST THIS FELINE ABOMINATION INTO THE STRATOSPHERE!" Bakugo screamed, frantically turning the plastic wheel, which made a loud [SQUEAK-SQUEAK] sound.
"Izu-chan, help me with the seating chart!" I called out.
Izuku was currently vibrating. He was holding his 'Hero Analysis for the Future' notebook, which now had a 20-page appendix titled: 'Sunny's Effect on Public Transportation: A Case Study in Madness.' "Sunny, I don't think Iida-kun likes the fact that the seats are made of marshmallows," Izuku whispered, pointing at our Class Rep.
Iida was currently chopping his arms so fast he was creating a localized windstorm. "MIDORIYA! WHILE I APPRECIATE THE UTILITY OF A SOFT SEATING ARRANGEMENT, THE LACK OF REGULATION SEATBELTS IS A VIOLATION OF UA SUB-SECTION 4—"
"Iida, buddy, look at me," I said, leaning against the air at a 45-degree angle. "The seats are the seatbelts. They're sentient. If we crash, they'll just hug you."
As the class filed in, the chaos reached peak levels.
Aqua was currently on her hands and knees at the back of the bus, pouring a bottle of "Goddess-Blessed High-Octane Water" into the cup holder. "Spirits of the engine! I command you to be purified! Do not let the debt collectors find me at 60 miles per hour!"
"Aqua, that's a cup holder, not the fuel tank," Jirou muttered, her jacks plugged into the bus's 'nervous system' to see if it actually had a pulse. (It did. It played jazz).
Mei Hatsume was trying to dismantle the 'eyes' of the bus. "Sunny! If I can figure out the optical sensor of this baby, I can make goggles that see into the fifth dimension!"
"Go for it, Gadget-Gremlin!" I cheered.
Once we were moving, the "Bus Talk" began. In the original script, this was where Tsuyu asked Izuku about the similarity of his quirk to All Might's. But I saw the camera panning toward them, and I knew I had to intervene before the plot got too heavy.
"Midoriya-chan," Tsuyu said, her finger to her lip. "I usually say what's on my mind. Your quirk... it reminds me of All Might's."
Izuku froze. His face went through five stages of panic in three seconds. He looked like a deer in headlights—and speaking of deer...
Noko Shikanoko was currently chewing on the headrest of the seat in front of her. "It's not All Might's quirk," Noko interjected, her antlers narrowly missing Mineta's eye. "I can smell it. It smells like... destiny. And slightly burnt toast."
"Actually, Tsu-chan!" I shouted, dropping from the ceiling of the bus and landing between them. I pulled a massive corkboard out of my pocket, covered in red string and blurry photos of cinnamon rolls. "The truth is far more scientific! My brother doesn't have a 'Quirk' in the traditional sense. He is actually powered by the Collective Hopes of a Thousand Cinnamon Rolls! It's a sub-atomic reaction where cuteness is converted into kinetic energy! See this graph?"
I pointed to a drawing of a smiling muffin. "The more people want to protect his smile, the harder he can punch. It's simple Physics of the Heart!"
Tsuyu blinked. "That... actually makes more sense than whatever Sunny does."
"I'll take it!" Izuku squeaked, wiping sweat from his brow.
Arrival: The Sci-Fi Shift
We pulled up to the USJ. The Cat-Bus let out a long, satisfied [MEOW-HONK] and let us out.
As the doors opened, I saw Thirteen. My eyes didn't just widen; they turned into literal telescopes. [BOING!]
"OH MY REEL-TO-REEL!" I screamed. "It's the Space Hero! This isn't a disaster simulation! This is a Sci-Fi Epic!"
I snapped my fingers. Instantly, I was wearing a bubble-dome fishbowl helmet and a silver spandex suit with "SUNNY-1" written on the chest. I started moving in extreme slow-motion, lifting my legs high and "drifting" through the air.
"Ground control to Major Sunny," I whispered into a fake wrist-radio. "I have located the marshmallow astronaut. The moon-cheese is within reach."
Thirteen tilted their head. "Is... is he okay?"
"No," Aizawa and the entire Class of Calamity said in perfect unison.
Thirteen began their speech about the dangers of quirks. It was a beautiful, somber moment. Naturally, I decided to ruin it. I looked over at the Flood Zone—a massive lake.
"Hey, Thirteen! If the goal is 'rescue,' shouldn't we make the victims more comfortable?" I pulled out a giant remote control. "I'm going to edit the Flood Zone into the 'USJ Pool Party & Tiki Bar'! I've got inflatable flamingos that can carry a 300-pound man!"
I reached for the "Edit" button in the air.
[SLAP!]
Aizawa's capture weapon wrapped around my hand. His eyes were glowing red. "Sunny. If you turn this training facility into a resort, I will erase your frame rate until you're a PowerPoint presentation."
"Understood, Captain Buzzkill," I saluted, my helmet vanishing with a sad [WUMP].
Then, the lights flickered. The fountain in the center of the plaza sputtered and died. The air didn't just get cold; it felt like the ink on the page was starting to run.
A black hole opened in the center.
"Thirteen! Protect the students!" Aizawa yelled.
"Wait," I said, my voice dropping the Brooklyn lilt. I pulled a pair of vintage 3D glasses out of nowhere and put them on. "The guest stars are here. And man... the character design on the lead villain is edgy."
Out of the portal stepped Shigaraki Tomura. Or as I like to call him: Handy Wendy.
He looked around, his red eyes darting frantically. He didn't look for All Might. He didn't look for the exit. He looked like a man who had spent the last two weeks waking up in a cold sweat dreaming of rubber ducks.
"Where is he?" Shigaraki rasped, his voice sounding like sandpaper on a grave. "Where is the tophat rat?! Where is the 24-frame-per-second nightmare?!"
He spotted me. I waved a four-fingered gloved hand. [HONK!] I squeezed my own nose.
Shigaraki flinched so hard he nearly tripped over his own feet. "HE'S HERE! KUROGIRI, HE'S SMILING AT ME! MAKE HIM STOP SMILING!"
"Tomura Shigaraki, please compose yourself," the warp-gate muttered.
"NO!" Shigaraki screamed, reaching into his coat. "I brought it! I spent the entire budget on it! Behold... the Anti-Toon Weapon!"
He pulled out... a giant, oversized eraser.
I burst out laughing so hard my head fell off, bounced on the ground, and I caught it like a basketball. "A giant eraser? What is this, 1940? You're gonna need a lot more than 'Stationary' to stop this broadcast, Wendy!"
"KILL HIM!" Shigaraki shrieked to the hundred-plus fodder villains behind him. "The one in the gloves! He's the priority! Forget the others! If you don't kill him, he'll turn your internal organs into confetti!"
The fodder villains looked at each other, then at me—a kid currently dribbling his own head.
"I signed up to fight kids," one villain whispered, dropping his lead pipe. "I didn't sign up to fight a glitch in the Matrix."
The Scatter: Chaos Re-Mastered
Kurogiri didn't wait. He expanded, engulfing the entire class.
"EVERYONE STAY TOGETHER!" Iida yelled.
But the warp was too strong. I felt the familiar 'tug' of a scene transition.
[WHISH!]
Suddenly, I wasn't at the entrance. I was in the Mountain Zone, standing on a jagged cliff. But I wasn't alone. Because the "Chaos Crew" has a gravitational pull, the warp gate had accidentally grouped us all together.
I looked around. I had Noko (the deer), Izuku, Bakugo (still in his car seat), Aqua, Toga, Momo, Jirou, Denki, Mina, Tokoyami, Mei, Todoroki, Uraraka, Iida, Tsuyu, Kirishima, Ojiro, Sato, Koda, Shoji, Sero, Aoyama, and Mineta.
Literally the entire class. We had been warped... five feet to the left of where we started.
"Kurogiri, you moron!" Shigaraki screamed from the bottom of the plaza. "You teleported the entire problem right next to me!"
"My apologies," Kurogiri said, his mist-eyes widening. "The boy... he edited the coordinates mid-travel."
"I like the view better from here!" I chirped.
The villains began to swarm up the rocks.
"Alright, crew!" I yelled, snapping on my gloves. "It's a battle royale! But let's make it a Calamity Classic! Aqua! Flood the zone!"
"I'LL SHOW YOU DIVINE WRATH!" Aqua screamed. She didn't use a water blast. She started crying so hard it created a flash-flood of "Holy Tears" that swept fifty villains back down the hill. "WHY IS THE SCARY HAND MAN LOOKING AT ME?! I'M TOO PRETTY TO DIE!"
Todoroki didn't even move. He just tapped the ground with his foot, and a massive glacier froze the villains solid. But because I was nearby, the ice didn't look like ice—it looked like blue raspberry popsicles.
"Is... is the ice supposed to be delicious?" Kirishima asked, punching a frozen villain.
"It's a feature, not a bug!" I shouted.
Down in the plaza, Shigaraki was losing his mind. He watched as Mina used her acid to create a slip-and-slide that sent villains flying into Bakugo, who was now out of his car seat and using Mei's latest 'baby'—a shoulder-mounted cannon that fired exploding glitter-bombs.
"DIE! DIE! WHY IS EVERYTHING PINK?!" Bakugo screamed, his explosions triggering a chain reaction of sparkles.
The Roast and the Portal
"This is pathetic," I said, sitting on the edge of the cliff, swinging my legs. "Hey, Wendy! You call this an invasion? I've seen more menacing behavior from a wet paper bag!"
Noko stepped up beside me, chewing on a cracker. "The deer gods find your lack of crackers... disturbing."
"You... you monsters..." Shigaraki hissed, scratching his neck until it bled. "Nomu! Kill them! Kill them all!"
The massive, black-skinned bird-monster stepped forward. It was built to kill All Might. It was the pinnacle of biological engineering.
"Oh, look, a giant chicken," I said, yawning. "Wendy, your pet is boring. It doesn't even have a hat."
I hopped down into the plaza, landing right in front of Shigaraki. Noko followed, her antlers glowing with an eerie, brain-rot light.
"You think you're so smart?" Shigaraki growled. "You're just a glitch. A joke."
"And you're a guy who needs a lot of moisturizer and a hug," I countered. "But hey, if we're doing the 'Final Boss' talk, I should bring in my legal counsel."
I pulled a Reality Crayon out of my ear and drew a lazy circle on the ground.
[SHLOOP.]
The hole opened like the universe sighing, and I reached in, yanking Momo Yaoyorozu out by the collar of her pristine blazer.
"Sunny?!" she yelped, barely catching her footing. "I was assisting Uraraka-san with a gravity vector calcu—"
"Momo-chan," I said, already steering her like a shopping cart with one bad wheel. "Emergency. We need a vibe check."
I pointed.
Shigaraki stood there in all his crusty glory, hands dangling like rejected props from a low-budget horror movie.
Momo blinked once.
Then again.
She straightened her spine.
Something… switched.
Her shoulders squared. Her chin lifted. Her eyes went dead calm. The air around her shifted into expensive disappointment.
"Oh," she said softly.
That one word somehow weighed more than a cannon.
She stepped forward, hands clasped politely behind her back, examining Shigaraki the way one inspects a cracked teacup they're about to throw away.
"Sunny," Momo sighed, "is this truly the main antagonist? I assumed there would be… effort."
Shigaraki stiffened. "What?"
"Let's start with the hands," she continued, pacing slowly around him. "You've layered them with no compositional balance. It gives the impression of a child hoarding toys they're afraid someone will take away. Very insecure."
One of his hands twitched.
"And the color palette," Momo added, tapping her chin. "Gray, beige, corpse-white. You look like a damp basement that learned to walk."
Denki gasped from the rocks. "Holy shit."
"The skin texture is especially tragic," Momo said, peering closer. "It's as if someone tried to animate stale bread and gave up halfway. Have you considered moisturizer? Or exfoliation? Or… sunlight?"
Shigaraki staggered back like he'd been slapped. "I—I was given these by my father—"
"Oh dear," Momo cut in gently. "Then he had atrocious taste."
She turned, gesturing vaguely toward Kurogiri.
"And the mist-man," she said. "A formal suit? In this humidity? It's a fashion felony. You look like a funeral director who lost a fight with a fog machine."
Kurogiri froze.
"…That was unnecessary," he muttered.
"No," Momo replied sweetly. "It was accurate."
Shigaraki's breathing went ragged. "S-Stop talking!"
"I haven't even addressed your posture," she continued. "You slouch like someone who knows their ideology won't survive a serious debate."
"SHE'S SPEEDRUNNING HIS THERAPY ISSUES!" Denki howled.
"Nomu!" Shigaraki screamed, voice cracking. "Kill her! Kill her right now!"
The Nomu lunged.
I stepped in front of Momo as the world flattened into black-and-white outlines. I didn't throw a punch.
I reached into my chest and pulled out a massive UNO card.
REVERSE.
[CLANG.]
The Nomu's fist slammed into it and instantly rebounded. The kinetic energy snapped back like an insult in a group chat.
The Nomu punched itself in the face so hard it did a full backflip and landed in a crater shaped like regret.
"Rule number one of the Toon-Zone, Wendy," I grinned, my teeth literally going [DING!]. "If you don't get the joke, you are the joke."
Behind us, the rest of Class 1-A came pouring down the mountainside like an unhinged parade. Explosions, ice, acid, glitter, deer crackers, someone yelling about OSHA violations.
I threw my arms wide.
"Alright, Class of Calamity!" I shouted. "Director's Cut starts now! Let's show Handy Wendy why you never bring a stationary eraser to a 24-frame-per-second fight!"
Momo adjusted her gloves, expression serene.
"Sunny," she said calmly, "after this, I will be charging you emotional labor fees."
Worth every yen.
[TO BE CONTINUED]